Founders Brewing Co.’s ‘KBS’

The last two weeks’ columns have been about small-batch, limited release rarities. I did so to get your minds set for something incredibly rare. I wanted everyone who reads these columns salivating for something truly special.

There are a number of breweries who host single- or multi-day-only releases of a once-a-year beer. The most anticipated have always been Russian River Pliny the Younger, Three Floyds Dark Lord, Cigar City Hunahpu and Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout. These events get so heavily-attended that special steps must be taken to organize. Names on tickets must match a legal ID to get in. Draft pours are limited per person while guests are allocated a precious bottle or two, if that.

Three Floyds sets up a fenced-in festival area and issues scratch off tickets for random chances at even more rare versions of Dark Lord. Russian River’s party goes about two weeks, but it is draft only; no bottles, no growlers. And poor Cigar City… Their Hunahpu Day began to draw thousands of guests annually. They issued tickets online only to see them counterfeited this year. The brewery had to refund over $100,000 dollars to angry guests once the beer ran out prior to their admittance! Sadly, Cigar City has now gone on record that they will no longer do Hunahpu Day because of the few bad apples.

That brings us to Founders. For the first time ever, they have commercially released their Kentucky Breakfast Stout in Florida. This beer was deemed the number one American craft beer last year by the readers of RateBeer.com and currently sits at number 5 on BeerAdvocate.com’s top 250.

What makes KBS so different that beer savages are willing to wait in line for days just to have a bottle? Take an already-awesome imperial stout laced with chocolate and coffee, put it in Heaven Hill Bourbon barrels and then age them in abandoned gypsum mines underneath the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan for a whole year. ‘Nuff said.

We managed to get our hands on one meager keg of this stuff at Hopjacks Filling Station. As soon as we did, I knew we had to plan a special day of our own so I grabbed a couple of other limited edition kegs to create a Founders beer flight. This Saturday, May 3 we’re running 3 visitation blocks of an hour and a half each from 1-5:30 pm. COMPLETE DETAILS HERE Call the office for a reservation; only 99 flights are being sold. Joining KBS on the flight is Curmudgeon Old Ale, Smoked Porter and Rubaeus Raspberry Ale.

KBS is entirely new to me, too, so I’ll be right there with you, eager to see how amazing it is. Let’s all make this an event worthy of the best breweries in America.